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CIE protests Osprey produced water permit
APDES would not allow commingling of produced water from Redoubt, West McArthur River units processed at onshore Kustatan facility
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
David Pascal of Glacier Oil and Gas has requested an adjudicatory hearing on an Alaska Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for wastewater discharges from the Osprey platform in Cook Inlet operated by Glacier subsidiary Cook Inlet Energy.
In an Aug. 14 request for hearing, Pascal said the contested issue is that the permit "does not authorize the discharge of any wastewater from onshore facilities directly, or commingled at a shore-based coastal facility."
Pascal said in the request that the Kustatan Production Facility processes production from the onshore West McArthur River drill site and from Redoubt, produced at the Osprey platform.
"The production is commingled in an effort to reduce environmental impacts from having two separate production facilities or separate processing trains to handle onshore and offshore streams separately," he said.
He also said that wells from Redoubt and West McArthur River both produce from offshore bottomhole locations, although Redoubt production is from an offshore platform and West McArthur River production from an onshore drill site.
To separate and process the streams individually would "require additional footprint, resources and capital that will end up compromising ultimate recovery," Pascal said.
He also said that some of the reservoirs had high water cuts, more than 90%, and "if effective water disposal solutions are not implemented" the economic limits of the reservoirs would be shortened.
PODs address water cut issue In its current plan of development for Redoubt, covering May 1, 2023, through April 30, 2024, the company said it "plans to implement cost-effective solutions to handle increasing water cuts from existing wells within the unit through proper water disposal. This will include decreasing the amount of produced water from the WMRU unit that is currently being injected in the RU unit."
In its current POD for West McArthur, covering the same period, the company said it would "implement cost-effective solutions to mitigate increasing water cuts from existing wells within the unit through proper water disposal." It said was evaluating shut-in wells to determine a candidate for a water disposal well.
Change requested The request for an adjudicatory hearing said the terms the company wants to see would allow it "to combine onshore and offshore streams for processing" since the bottomhole locations of wells in both reservoirs are beneath Cook Inlet.
In arguing for the hearing and the change in the APDES permit, the company said granting the request would extend the life of the fields and facilities and keep Alaskans employed. It would add to ultimate recovery and provide maximum benefit to the state through additional royalties.
"The remote location of onshore facilities and associated capital costs for segregation and/or additional disposal wells are cost prohibitive and there is probability that they may not pan out."
Granting the request would keep the existing environmental footprint from being expanded "through needless drilling activity and eliminates the potential risk associated with offshore drilling."
In an Aug. 22 public notice the Office of Administrative Hearings said it would issue a recommended decision to the Department of Environmental Conservation on whether to grant or deny the request, or to remand the decision to the DEC Water Division director. The DEC commissioner will issue a decision on the request.
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